It will allow those informed and concerned individuals to be cast in history as visionairies.

The affidavit could be crafted by a team of the most concerned and offer the chance for them all to forever record personal predictiona of one page in length and contain a section of multiple choice, and rank by priority questions on the various climate change topics.

I predict when this grand opportunity be presented and ratified; not one person on earth would sign it.

7. Burg must have been quoted at 2am, as that's one of the silliest things I've heard in a long time. Of course there's an equal chance it will be above or below average, although technically it's more accurate to say that there's an equal (50-50) chance of being above or below the median.
Posted by: Obi-Wan on April 2, 2007 01:08 PM

8. JCM,

I loved that quote, too! Quite telling. I think the biggest thing the enviro-socialists have to counter is Patrik Moore, founder of Greenpeace. When he's against their positions and conclusions and methods then you KNOW you're dealing with people in "the movement" strictly for the politics!

12. It's becoming increasingly obvious that Global Warming is a religion and not based on any sound facts. Al Gore's doomsday predictions of 20 foot sea level rise within 50 years are a long way from the IPCC's worst case estimated of 17 inches. 17 inches is easily within the realm of human adjustment. We adjust all the time for erosion and other natural "disasters" such a volcanoes, earthquakes, tornadoes, etc. There is no cause for alarm.

Furthermore, even by Gore's own analysis, the best case hope for even the most Draconion conservation (which Gore is unwilling to impose upon himself) is a reduction of temps by .07 degrees Celsius. And that is at a cost of $100 Billion. That's 100 Billion that could be far better spent on pollution, or cancer, or heart disease, or AIDS or any other actually pressing problems which confront humanity and are not just the result of doomsday computer model predictions.

To have a real effect of our environment, it would take over 30 Kyotos to be implemented at a cost of $3 Trillion, which is obviously not worth the impact that such a cost would have on the world economy.

Global Warming is about the imposition of a Marxist scheme upon US citizenry, and nothing more. It is the same groups allied with the same Socialist and Marxist groups that continue to propose every form of environmental scare, no matter how often they prove to be false. Alar, Power Lines, DDT, Ice Age, Ozone Hole, Population Bomb, etc. all proven false, and all trumped up as the next demise of humanity.

The whole notion of humanity as having any significant impact upon the earth is simple a farce. We could take the entire world's population, and give every single person an acre to live on, and fit it within the bounds of the state of Texas. We exist in places all over the earth, because we enjoy the earth and the many different geographies that it offers. But as a total, the earth is 2/3 uninhabited by humans as ocean, and essentially empty in even the remaining land mass which largely consists of frozen tundra in places like Antarctica, Greenland, Siberia, and Yukon territory. And much of what's left is desert like Nevada or the Sahara. It's simply an outright lie that we are any threat at all to this planet.

Don't believe the Global Warming lies, instead tune in to the many scientists who continue to call for real science, testable hypothesis, and realistic expenditure that fit within the bounds of our current economies and structures.

13. Before DM appears, let's just summarize his position:
1. American capitalism is destroying the Earth.
2. Oil will soon run out and Western Civ. will implode.
2. Billions are going to die a horrible death.
3. The end is near.

I think your intentions are good, but your stats are a little off. It would take about 40 people per acre to fit the world in Texas. But then, that's not very crowded either. That is about the average density of a standard US suberb if you think of 8 houses per acre with 5 per house, leaving room enough for a picket fence, flower garden, lawn and standard two lane street with sidewalks.

16. I would panic at the prospect of listening to the Vogon poetry of DMented.
Posted by: JCM on April 2, 2007 04:56 PM

17. Steve, You're so very wrong. Queen Christine finally let me lick her shoes and I'm in heaven! I no longer give a rat's ass about global warming; instead, she's promised me she'll use Hillary's strap-on in our next session. What bliss!
Posted by: David Mathews on April 2, 2007 06:26 PM

18. Even though I think DM is a typical lefty with no real argument, the comment at #17 is totally uncalled for and should be removed. Debate is fine, even if DM will not, but disgusting posts obviously not by the man himself (DM) should be removed and if the person doing it doesn't stop they should be banned!
Posted by: TrueSoldier on April 2, 2007 06:36 PM

19. As much as would like to see DM barred for wasting too many electrons (created with CO2-nasty coal power in Florida). The poster at 17 (and several other locations lately) is not him.

Whoever it is stop it. You are not fooling anyone (well, maybe TS and Michelle).

20. Eyago, I got that math from another source. I should have checked it myself, thanks for catching my mistake. But as you agree, the point is obvious, by any sane metric the Earth is essentially uninhabited by humans. We don't even register a blip on the total area of the earth. Just take Western Washington for Example. The majority of the land mass of Western Washington is the Cascades and the Olympic Peninsula, which are largely uninhabited. Just look at the Map. It's obvious. That's why stories like the headline story on the Tacoma New Tribune page one from Sunday are so disgusting. The story was that the Evergreen State might need to change its nickname if development continued. They picked a convenient picture of some few acres of clear cut land to "tell the story." But the Olympic Peninsula is a National Park, and it's protected, and there are far more evergreens there than there are anywhere else in the Puget Sound region. Not to mention the many other national forests, parks, etc. And the tendency for developments to leave trees intact once built. Take a drive through any older development, or older city, and you see many trees that are quite mature, having been growing for many generations, because they add value once planted.

Global Warming and the anti-man whining is just a huge load of BS that is attempting to make us all feel guilty, as a means to controlling our behavior and parting us from our income. The Global Warming Truthers face an ever growing mountain of evidence that contradicts their lies. And an ever greater number of people willing to stand up and challenge their threats. Those of us who are rational will win, simply because when push comes to shove, no one is going to give up their lifestyle for no reason. And especially not Al Gore.

I am watching the Florida Gators play Ohio State for the National Championship, second time this year that these two colleges have played for a championship. There's a pretty good chance that the Gators will win, as they should.

I like the question:

> Can modern climate science predict the next century's climate any better than it predicts next week's weather?

The climate is not the weather, of course, but the unpredictability of the weather does not serve to mitigate the negative human impacts upon the climate.

The decline in oil production has already begun. We are already feeling the economic stress generated by this momentous event: $3.00 a gallon gasoline is appearing several places throughout the country.

When Peak Oil finally reaches the public consciousness we all will miss the days when gasoline was "only" $2.75 a gallon. America's economy will suffer.

> 3. Billions are going to die a horrible death.

Undoubtedly. Human population will peak at approximately nine billion and collapse afterwards. The completion of the boom-bust cycle will take at least a century.

> 4. The end is near.

The end is already here but the forces are so large and long-lasting that their accomplishment requires centuries. Those who live long will live long enough to experience some major suffering.

22. DM, Finally something we agree upon. Go Gators. But what a disgusting display of waste. All those bright lights. All the fuel required to get the players and fans to the stadium. And you are burning precious fossil fuels by allowing yourself to watch the television using modern technology. You are not willing to change your lifestyle, and the reason is mostly that you don't have to.
Posted by: Jeff B. on April 2, 2007 07:39 PM

23. Regarding #21:

Vogon Poetry.
One could hope the same fate befalls DM as Grunthos the Flatulent. By the way DM, the SCOTUS ruled to day that your breath is pollution.

You said,"Those who live long will live long enough to experience some major suffering."

Boy, now there is a crystal ball seer. David predicts that some of us will live a long time and just like our grandparents, our great-grandparents and thousands of generations before us, we will get old, suffer and finally die. Whew, glad that life mystery has been revealed! What we need to do is go back to our caves and live the long, easy, carefree lives of our pre-historic ancestors. Before all this the global warming, man would work at hunting mammoths just once a year. Now look at us. We have to go to work everday.

Despite the constant drumbeat coming from the media and their global warming prophet soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore, we have lately seen more and more noted scientists around the world speaking out against the supposed consensus that man causes climate change.

The most recent entry on the side of the skeptics was Dr. Syun-Ichi Akasofu, the former director of the University of Alaska Fairbanks International Arctic Research Center.

"If you look back far enough, we have a bunch of data that show that warming has gone on from the 1600s with an almost linear increase to the present," Akasofu said.

He showed ice-core data from the Russian Arctic that show warming starting from the early 1700s, temperature records from England showing the same trend back to 1660 and ice breakup dates at Tallinn, Estonia, that show a general warming since the year 1500.

So, why the supposed consensus?

Akasofu said scientists who support the man-made greenhouse gas theory disregard information from centuries ago when exploring the issue of global warming. Satellite images of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean have been available in the satellite era only since the 1960s and 1970s.

"Young researchers are interested in satellite data, which became available after 1975," he said. "All the papers since (the advent of satellites) show warming. That's what I call 'instant climatology.' I'm trying to tell young scientists, 'You can't study climatology unless you look at a much longer time period.' "

Of course, the date 1975 is crucial, for between 1940 and 1975, the planet was going though a period of cooling which lead many scientists to believe - and media to report - that the earth might be entering a new ice age. As such, looking at data specifically from 1975 will only show increasing temperatures. How convenient.

The article continued:

Akasofu said there is no data showing that "most" of the present warming is due to the man-made greenhouse effect, as the members of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change wrote in February.

He pointed out that the atmosphere cooled from 1940 to 1975 despite a rapid increase in carbon dioxide emissions during the same period.

"Nature changes all the time," he said. "The natural component is there. Until you remove it, you don't know the man-made effect."

Dr. Syun-Ichi Akasofu's criticisms of Global Warming Alarmism aren't very impressive. Those climatologists who are digging up ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica are examining the climate over the last several hundred thousand years.

28. I am so profoundly comforted that DM, an amateur photographer in Florida has pronounced that the findings of a man who holds a doctorate in Arctic research are not very impressive, and for the reason that the good Dr. based his findings on "several hundred thousand years" data as opposed to the Goracle, who simply ignores any data older than 30 or 40 years old. Very impressive, DM.
Posted by: katomar on April 3, 2007 07:58 AM

29. @27, yeah, and today the Poodle and his missus are in Seattle to lecture us.
Posted by: Obi-Wan on April 3, 2007 07:58 AM

30. Obi-wan

Scary isn't it. Now you know they didn't walk here or come by a passenger plane. No it was their own Gulf stream.

32. I see the GW topic brings Matthews out of the Florida swamp again.
I notice he dismisses a scientist with actual research under his belt yes sucks up to any research with government money behind it.
Since he lives in Forida, when we're successful in melting the polar caps, what are we going to do without DM's idiotic postings? I hope he has a twin in the high grounds that will take his place.
Posted by: PC on April 3, 2007 08:46 AM

#1. In all likelyhood, the impact of human activity on the enviroment is negligible. The burden of proof falls on the AGW crowd.

#2. This statement is meaningless. When you type, you affect the enviroment. Please try to say something meaningful.

#3. Again, this is an empty statement. Everything alters everything around it to some degree. The burden of proof falls on chicken little to prove that the sky is falling.

#4. I love how you say "the earth is getting hotter". I think you're on to something. The "Global Warming" crowd have it all wrong. It doesn't market very well. We all like warm. Warm is nice. Warm goes with fuzzy. We like fuzzy. Warm and fuzzy, well... they give me the warm and fuzzies. Sort of like when I'm wearing sweats indoors on a cold day. I like your idea of calling it "Global Hottening". That sounds more dangerous. We all know from childhood that "hot" = bad. Warm = good, hot = bad. There, I've helped you for the day. As far as the oceans rising, more correct would be to say that the land is sinking... but you'll probably try to tie that to human activities as well. Maybe the earth is sinking because of obese people on the beach. You haven't talked about obese people for a while, I think you should go back to that. Just how much sea level rise is supposed to happen in the next 50 years according to the IPCC? Maybe you should call up Mayor Nichols and tell him to scrap the tunnel - after all, Seattle is on the water, and if the sea rises, its going to screw up his 3 Billion dollar tunnel. Maybe he needs to talk to the Dutch instead, since they're really good at reclaiming land that was once ocean...

I spent today at a very beautiful place visiting parks along the bay and later by the Hillsborough river. The world that you live in is very different from mine. I prefer living creatures to possessions, a healthy planet over a booming economy, and nature's technology over human technology.

In reply to my comments, you say the following:

> #1. In all likelyhood, the impact of human activity on the enviroment is negligible. The burden of proof falls on the AGW crowd.

This is an absurd statement. Evidence of human impacts upon the environment are on display everywhere throughout the world. The asphalt on the group, the plastic trash floating in the water and the smog in the atmosphere. Humans have a tremendous impact upon the environment and these impacts do have consequences.

> #2. This statement is meaningless. When you type, you affect the enviroment. Please try to say something meaningful.

The statement is meaningful because I am speaking about humankind altering the environment on a global scale. Human pollution throughout the land, oceans and the atmosphere.

> #3. Again, this is an empty statement. Everything alters everything around it to some degree. The burden of proof falls on chicken little to prove that the sky is falling.

I did not say alter, I said eradicated. The scale of human destructiveness is astonishing.

> #4. I love how you say "the earth is getting hotter". I think you're on to something. The "Global Warming" crowd have it all wrong. It doesn't market very well. We all like warm. Warm is nice. Warm goes with fuzzy. We like fuzzy. Warm and fuzzy, well... they give me the warm and fuzzies.

It is enough that you acknowledge that the earth is warming.

> As far as the oceans rising, more correct would be to say that the land is sinking...

What are you talking about?

> Maybe the earth is sinking because of obese people on the beach. You haven't talked about obese people for a while, I think you should go back to that.